Make Your Stick Figures Work Harder: The 3 C's of Sketching

Look inside a designer's toolkit and you'll likely find a broadly defined exercise called sketching. It's an exercise that can turn napkins, flip charts, whiteboards and 6-up templates into valuable assets containing everything from direction of business models to mobile app experiences. While a sketching exercise might produce an artifact seemingly simple to the uninitiated, great designers know the exercise requires design itself. By purposefully designing the exercise around the "3 C's" - communication, context and collaboration - we can increase participation and engagement by both design team members and stakeholders. In this session you'll learn about these three factors that are key to consider in planning and facilitating a sketching exercise. You'll also walk away with a handful of tips and tricks to try on your next project.

5.
URBAN PUPS
It’s important to socialize your dog and make sure they get enough
exercise, but for people who live in cities, this can be especially
difficult to manage. Hectic schedules combined with limited access
to dog-friendly public space results in many dogs spending their
days cooped up in apartments.
Urban Pups is a new service that allows dog owners to swap pet
care tips, find dog-friendly parks, and share insights and
experiences. Whether you’re looking for a dog park in your area or
just looking for house training suggestions, Urban Pups can help
keep all of the pups in your community happy and healthy.
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6.
YOUR ASSIGNMENT (PART 1)
You’ve been hired to lead the UX practice at Urban Pups. As the lead UX
designer, you’re now responsible for helping set the experience design strategy
and direction for the soon-to-be-released mobile application. Until now, the
company has only provided their service via a desktop site.
Your team consists of a junior UX designer, a project manager and a front-end
developer. They’ve been doing the best they can to support the sales and
marketing business stakeholders, but they haven’t been following much of a
design process. This could be a great opportunity to introduce some sketching!
1. Draw the experience of a sketching activity.
2. Consider communicating the process, the context of the experience and
collaboration amongst team members.
3. You have 5 minutes.
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23.
“
Don’t get focused on the screen.
You want to pull back and consider
the context. The experience.
”
Peter Merholz
VP of Design, Groupon
@peterme
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24.
INSIGHT
The fidelity of a sketch
should reflect the depth
of your thinking.
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25.
FOCUS AND PURPOSE
•
Sketching To Communicate An Idea
"Here's what I'm trying to tell you..."
•
Sketching To Record What We're Seeing And Hearing
"This is what I want to remember..."
•
Sketching To Work Through Some Thinking
•
Sketching To Reflect What We're Hearing
"This is what I think you're telling me..."
•
Sketching To Document
"Here's is what we've ended up with..."
"What will this look like?..."
Source: “Why We Sketch”, Jared Spool
http://www.uie.com/articles/why_sketching/
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50.
“
I would add another “C” (CxCCC). Clarity of
Communication, Clarity of Context, Clarity of
Collaboration. Sketching does that on all the
three aspects, and if something isn’t clear…
ask why, involve more people, fill the gaps
until it gets clear.
”
Davide Casali
Author and UX Designer, Automattic
@folletto
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